Bright days ahead for the Amiga world. AROS is doing well, AmigaOS4 is getting one heck of a machine in the AmigaOne X1000, and MorphOS continues its development at a brisk pace. Version 2.6 of MorphOS, currently in development, will add support for (G4, I'm assuming) PowerMacs, which, alongside support for the Mac Mini and eMac, gives MorphOS a solid base of used hardware to run on.

??? What does x86 have to do with PPC ???
It's a completely different architecture and actually older than PPC. What do you mean?
Do you mean that one should "upgrade" to x86 because it is cheap? Why not ARM or MIPS or whatever? In what way is x86 an "upgrade" to PPC?

??? What does x86 have to do with PPC ???
It's a completely different architecture and actually older than PPC. What do you mean?
Do you mean that one should "upgrade" to x86 because it is cheap? Why not ARM or MIPS or whatever? In what way is x86 an "upgrade" to PPC?

He is drawing parallels to Apple's move from PowerPC to x86 considering Apple was the largest PowerPC desktop/laptop producer up until recently. That there is a movement away from PowerPC outside of niche areas and it would be best for the said operating system vendor to do likewise.

Well, luckily A-eon managed to score a pretty decent PowerPC processor to work with for the X1000, and while it surely won't rekindle the PowerPC flame, it's still good to see people willing to bet on something else than x86.

Sure, it might not make sense, but then, neither does growing a beard. Still, I did it anyway.

He is drawing parallels to Apple's move from PowerPC to x86 considering Apple was the largest PowerPC desktop/laptop producer up until recently. That there is a movement away from PowerPC outside of niche areas and it would be best for the said operating system vendor to do likewise.

That is my assumption anyway.

But then Apple moved from x86 to ARM. And if Apple did it, everybody should do it. After all, Apple is always right and those who do not follow Apple are behind the curve.
So the next upgrade is x86 and then ARM, right?
Why not jump straight to ARM then?
Sorry but that all makes no sense to me. The "Apple did it" argument is void. MorphOS is a niche OS. Those who run it are mainly Amiga enthusiasts. Does it make sense to develop applications for MorphOS on x86? I'm not sure.

A 400 MHz G4 Mac is going to boot quicker with MorphOS than a brand new top-end Mac.

I've never understood the obsession with boot times. Granted, excessive boot times are a pain, but I only boot my computer once in a while. Usually, my system goes into standby when I'm away, and it comes out really quickly.

I've never understood the obsession with boot times. Granted, excessive boot times are a pain, but I only boot my computer once in a while. Usually, my system goes into standby when I'm away, and it comes out really quickly.

Short boot times are interesting because cold boot is better than standby for a few reasons :
-No power wasted, except that of the power light. Contrast with keeping RAM (especially) and some other circuitry running for nothing. This issue is voided by hibernation, though, but then boot times become important again.
-Software performance degrades with uptime. There's always a memory leak somewhere, some applications leave processes in the background wasting CPU time for unknown purposes even after they're closed, some crashes have long-term consequences... Fetching a fresh OS image from the disk allows one to go back in a clean state where software runs at full speed and maximum reliability.

This issue is voided by hibernation, though, but then boot times become important again.

With hibernation, boot times is scarcely more than loading a ram image off the hard disk. That's fine for 2GB of ram. I wonder how practical it is for 16GB?

oftware performance degrades with uptime. There's always a memory leak somewhere, some applications leave processes in the background wasting CPU time for unknown purposes even after they're closed, some crashes have long-term consequences... Fetching a fresh OS image from the disk allows one to go back in a clean state where software runs at full speed and maximum reliability.

I have to disagree with this statment. This isn't the days of Windows 98. My system doesn't degrade as uptime increases, and Windows does a fine damn job of shutting down processes. Also, the software I use is well written, and doesn't normally doesn't leak memory. If it does, I restart only the app in question, and sanity is returned.

Heck, OWB 1.7 supports HTML5 video/audio, meaning that MorphOS is more capable on the Internet out of the box than Windows 7 out of the box (IE8).

I don't disagree with anything you said - apart from the above. Windows 7 does "come" with IE8, but almost as soon as you boot the OS it downloads the Browser ballot (silently) and unless you catch it in time to cancel, it reboots*, installs the update and asks you to choose which browser you want. It will not shut up till you pick one. I chose IE8 because I really, really couldn't hack it bugging me and I was on a train with no WiFi or internet access.

* I was 90% through writing a document on the way to work at the time and it LOST my document as I had not remembered to turn on autosave for some idiotic reason (or it just wasn't working in office 2003 under Windows 7.)

EDIT: oh and these days, "out of box" no longer means "on the installation media" because so many OS require an online update soon after initial boot up.

Well, even though some might see as a flamebait I'll say yes There's just so much good in ARM that sooner or later people will start buying ARM desktops for home use. x86 will be around yes, but by then it'll be for professional use or people with a need for really high performance regardless the power consumption.

Well, even though some might see as a flamebait I'll say yes There's just so much good in ARM that sooner or later people will start buying ARM desktops for home use. x86 will be around yes, but by then it'll be for professional use or people with a need for really high performance regardless the power consumption.

Indeed, I'd gladly buy an ARM-based desktop since high performance is not very important for me (I only need it for compiling software ).

On the other hand, I've yet to see a standard desktop architecture on ARM, like the IBM PC mess (BIOS, PCI, and friends) on x86. And a desktop-grade OS running properly (= very snappily, not like most desktop OSs on Atom netbooks) on top of it.

Indeed, I'd gladly buy an ARM-based desktop since high performance is not very important for me (I only need it for compiling software ).

Usual desktop usecases aren't really that dependant on CPU performance, instead the computer mostly sits idle waiting for input and as such an ARM-powered desktop would be quite perfect; ARM uses really, really little power when idle, and quite little even when working at full speed. And as there already exists multi-core, multi-gigahertz ARM processors they're plenty good even for gaming. Gaming mostly is limited by disk access and GPU performance anyways.

I just hope someone will bring a good ARM desktop to the regular consumers soon.

And a desktop-grade OS running properly (= very snappily, not like most desktop OSs on Atom netbooks) on top of it.

Yeah. At the moment it seems it'd be Linux, QNX or perhaps Haiku. They all have their own share of rough corners and while I like Linux quite a lot and am a F/OSS proponent I don't really think Linux would be all that good a choice.

Haiku IMHO seems to have the most potential at becoming the next big OS, but they have so much stuff ahead of them before it's ready for general populace. Especially proper gaming APIs, support for broader hardware, and acceleration of various tasks are needed before it can even try to become a desktop OS for general populace.

Apple didn't move from x86 to ARM. Just because they have new products that use ARM doesn't mean they are moving from x86. For that to be true, either their upcoming desktops would have to be arm (which of course they aren't) or they would have had to been using x86 in iPhones/iPods prior to ARM (which, of course, they haven't).

And if Apple did it, everybody should do it. After all, Apple is always right and those who do not follow Apple are behind the curve.

Not at all. Moving from PPC to x86 was a very good move for Apple, and they did so for very good reasons: Performance. The key question is, is the goal of MorphOS to truly revive Amiga as a viable platform, or is it merely to cater to Amiga enthusiasts?

I hope it is the former, because the latter is market that can really only shrink.

-PowerPC is dead for desktop use. Apple ditched it when its power management performance became unsatisfactory, and Sony remotely killed OtherOS on the PS3 because they feared some random piracy danger and actually thought that average people would actually go as far as installing linux on their PS3 in order to pirate games (well, it's Sony after all). The only remaining PowerPC desktops are legacy hardware that you'll likely be unable to replace once it wears out.

-This makes x86(_64) the only widespread desktop computer architecture, since other architectures (SPARC, ARM...) have not much presence on that market (should I say "yet" about ARM ?)

-Hence people replacing their dead PowerPC hardware will likely buy x86 hardware next, making x86 support more of a priority than legacy G4s

Thank you, that makes a lot more sense than just "Wow".
However, would people who buy a brand new x86 PC that comes with a Windows license be more likely to run Windows or MorphOS? Does it make sense for MorphOS to compete with Windows on x86?

Anyway I think Sony cut off OtherOS support because they subsidy the console. They sell it for less than its cost and recoup by selling expensive games.
If you buy the console to install linux, you won't be buying any game and that costs Sony the price of the subsidy.
Look at that: http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2009/11/sony-still-subsidizing...
That happened not long before Sony axed OtherOS. I suppose they didn't want that to become a trend.

Thank you, that makes a lot more sense than just "Wow".
However, would people who buy a brand new x86 PC that comes with a Windows license be more likely to run Windows or MorphOS? Does it make sense for MorphOS to compete with Windows on x86?

Well, since MorphOS is a niche OS anyway, I think it doesn't lose much at being a niche OS which runs on modern computers like desktop Linux and BSDs. Amiga fans will follow the Amiga myth no matter where it goes

Apple has shown that making reasonably fast PowerPC emulation can be a good transition solution, so there wouldn't even be a loss in functionality.

Anyway I think Sony cut off OtherOS support because they subsidy the console. They sell it for less than its cost and recoup by selling expensive games.
If you buy the console to install linux, you won't be buying any game and that costs Sony the price of the subsidy.
Look at that: http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2009/11/sony-still-subsidizing...
That happened not long before Sony axed OtherOS. I suppose they didn't want that to become a trend.

You're right, that's a very valid explanation of this move too. And makes me even more clueless than usually facing the logic of modern economics, where you voluntarily lose money hoping that something unrelated will somehow give you your money back AND get angry if that doesn't happen.

At least, people who fund fundamental research are generally ready to accept the loss of money that may come with it fairly. See the LHC : it's obviously never going to reimburse the initial investment, it's just built for the sake of glory and scientific achievement.

There are still some PS3 with pre 3.15 firmware with OtherOS support.
I hope the class action can make Sony revert support back.
The PS3 was a cheap PowerPC computer that do not heat and can keep the power bill low. Now it is merely a console.

This is usefull to know because often Amigans get big rolling eyes. Often with comments like there is only 3 Amiga users left. But infact that map proves its over 900 of us worldwide and that map have been only active since last Wednesday when I posted on aw.net forum about it.

LOL, I hope you were't being serious. Otherwise it seems you completely missed the point that in the big scheme of things, when we're talking about a population of billions, 3 or 900 really are statistically equivalent.

Although it seems that at some point the die hard Amiga community and reality parted ways...

Indeed. There's probably more than 2000 DOS and windows < 98 machines still running in corporate environments and education/research. Mainly because software for it was expensive and they never found something which was really worth the switch to more recent operating systems, especially Windows NT flavors and their tendency to make everything that uses COM1 crash miserably.

Does that make them non-isolated people as the scale of the computer world ? Them who have a hard time with the simplest usb pen-drive around ?